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An overlooked form of creativity

Enjoy music? Video games? Well, how about both? And no, I don’t mean Rock Band. I’m talking about OverClocked ReMix, an online community that is dedicated to appreciating and promoting the music that you hear in video games.

Founded in 1999, the website features hundreds of fan-made arrangements of your favorite video game tracks for free.
According to the community staff, they classify this arrangement as “more than just updated versions of the original tracks- they are reinterpretations, often in an entirely different musical genre than the source material.” So if you’ve ever been curious to hear the Super Mario Bros. theme song in a Jazz ensemble arrangement then you’re in luck. There’s something for everyone.

To date, OC ReMix has over 2,000 mixes and 20,000 registered users.
Aside from just listening to the music, the community offers advice and resources to aspiring musicians as well. Just be warned, as with other community-based workshops, you should be able to accept criticism and so that you can move forward to improve yourself. Don’t expect to be the center of attention because you made one track, and don’t expect to be immediately accepted into the fray.

The community has even gained the attention of professional composers such as Jack Wall, who has worked on the Mass Effect series, and Nobuo Uematsu, famous for being the primary composer for the majority of the Final Fantasy franchise. You might just get the chance to meet and have a casual chat with celebrity-status individuals, many of whom are extremely down-to-Earth.

Some musicians in the community have even landed big-time jobs in the gaming industry, including AAA titles such as Soul Calibur 5. An opportunity is always around the corner.

That said, you should head over to ocremix.org and check them out. Even if you don’t play video games, you can always support the musicians and appreciate an art form along with other music fans.

Capa is the mild-mannered, culturally-confused English major of The Prospector. As an aspiring novelist he thrives to write simply for the sake of writing. Other than writing he spends most of his free time on music and video games, sometimes even combining the two. Also likes to think he’s up in the-know with technology. No, not really. Reach him at prospector.clo@gmail.com for comments and/or suggestions.